Questions still unanswered on The Path to 9/11

The Path to 9/11 (BBC did not know of 9/11 film's link to religious right, September 13) was indeed a piece of partisan political propaganda exploiting the anniversary of September 11 2001 to convince Americans that they will not be safe from terrorism under the other party's governance.

The attack ads are everywhere and The Path to 9/11 was one of them. In cahoots with a major supplier of classroom materials, Scholastic Inc, 100,000 study guides for classroom discussion will be provided to teachers nationwide (re-edited at the last minute as a result of a massive outcry). And through agreements with Apple's iTunes MusicStore, ABC.com and XM Radio, audiocasts of the docu-drama will be available for free downloading. The fictional film was presented as based on the report of the bipartisan congressional 9/11 Commission; it has been vociferously refuted as false and misleading by the Democratic co-chair of that commission, President Clinton and members of his administration, and now by American Airlines. A furious letter and telephone campaign to ABC (which broadcast the film), Disney (which owns ABC) and the Federal Communications Commission, resulted in last-minute cuts of about half an hour from the final version. But even so, the film was broadcast with defamatory scenes representing shocking, and completely imaginary, dereliction of duty by named individuals such as Sandy Berger.

Word of the director's (and screenwriter's) militant Christian affiliations was late in coming for most of us: only rightwing conservatives were allowed to preview the film. But the key question is: where's the money trail? ABC spent $40m on the film, which was shown without advertisements and had no known corporate sponsors. This is well-nigh unheard of in American TV. Even our Public Broadcasting Corporation network, PBS, has corporate sponsors. So who paid for this film? And the dissemination of free copies and classroom materials across the nation? What motivated this corporate largesse?Professor Mary Baine CampbellBrandeis UniversityProfessor Marilyn HackerCity University of New YorkScott Verner

Rev Ben Phillips (Letters, September 14) reckons that Youth with a Mission isn't fundamentalist, but a mainstream Christian organisation. YYAM, according to its own website, "affirms the Bible as the authoritative word of God and, with the Holy Spirit's inspiration, the absolute reference point for every aspect of life and ministry", and that "absolute" settles the matter. If that ain't fundamentalism, the word is meaningless. Perhaps that's the trouble.Rev Richard Bradshaw Middlesbrough